


some bonds don't die

by Tobi_Black



Series: If at first you don't succeed, try again [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chad is Strongest Boi and Built to Last, Echoes of a Past Life reasserting themselves, Enma-o, Gen, Hell Gate (Bleach), Hollow Ichigo's Hierro, Hollow Ichigo's Sonido, Hollow Ichigo's bloodlust, Isshin is Dramatic, Jigoku, Karu-hana, Keigo is Dramatic, Keigo is Keigo, Kurosaki Ichigo is Shiba Kaien, Kurosaki Ichigo-centric, Miru-me, Orihime lives with Tatsuki after Sora put a hole in the wall, Quincy!Ichigo, Reincarnation, Shinigami Society, Shinigami/Zanpakutou Bond, Soul Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-10 19:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 17,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20140675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobi_Black/pseuds/Tobi_Black
Summary: Chad finds a cockatiel. Chad finds a ghost boy. Chad finds said ghost boy's hollow keeper.These three things are not as unrelated as Ichigo would wish, particularly when it turns out there's more than one hollow involved.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mwahahaha! I'm back~

_10:47 p.m._

Ichigo had woken up late in the evening, not even two hours after he’d gone to sleep, for what felt like no reason.

Before he realized it, he was up and out of bed, throwing open his closet to sleepily glare at Rukia, “The pager, did it go off?”

From her confused expression, even before she pulled it out and checked, Ichigo knew it hadn’t. There was a scratching against his senses that made him think it _should_ have though.

“No, go back to sleep.”

She turned over on her side, summarily dismissing him.

His eye twitched, lips thinning as he fought the urge to grab her – _his_ – blanket off her, to wake her up. Instead he just silently – but with much vehemence – threw his hands up in the air, and quietly stomped back to his bed, because the house was quiet and he didn’t want to wake his family up by yelling and making loud thumps.

As it was, he still wasn’t sure how he’d gotten so lucky as to have his body laying on the floor of his room after a bit of yelling and flailing by him and Rukia for over an hour while he’d dealt with the older Inoue, and _not_ been swarmed by concerned sisters and father.

(_Isshin _must _know_.)

Instead, he paced by his window, trying to stretch that sense he had that he’d been working with to _know_ where people and hollows were. He’d gotten better at it in the couple of days since sending the older Inoue on to Soul Society, mostly because Rukia had been _right there, in his room_, for a _week_, and he felt like he should have known.

The fact that she was _still_ there – this time with his grudgingly given permission to camp out in his closet, because he’d spent an hour – or two – trying to think of a way to have her stay over without sneaking around, constantly at risk of his father finding her in his room at night, and he’d gotten as far as imaging his father slyly chuckling with a creepy wide-grin before trying to say _something_ about making sure to practice safe sex so he didn’t have grandbabies so young, before he’d decided that it was better to just keep things as they were. He did his best to tune her out as far as only knowing roughly where she was in relation to his family, so the two worlds of his life now that he was acting as a shinigami for Rukia _didn’t collide_.

He was going to avoid _that_ conversation with Goat Face forever, if he could.

(Even if part of him thought Goat Face _knew_ Rukia was living in his closet.

Because maybe, his father _did_ know how his mother had died, and had _understood_ when he’d said a _monster_ had killed her. That he had been able to _see _the hollow that night he’d met Rukia.

_He_ wouldn’t ask though.)

He paced, and paced, fingers twitching and still not seeing the sparks lighting off his fingers as they flexed and curled around a phantom-bow, instead looking out at where he _thought,_ _might,_ be a hollow – and where _Chad_ was.

Ichigo didn’t sleep for several hours.


	2. Chapter 2

_12:17 p.m._

It was only lunch, but Ichigo wanted the school day to be over; he was _exhausted_.

What little sleep he’d gotten had been restless, fitful, filled with half-dreams where he’d been looking for something and he’d been willing to risk everything to find, and a sometimes-woman sometimes-sea serpent was _screaming_ before white devoured everything that he had been and was. He’d apparently then looked so terrible this morning that Yuzu had asked if he was staying home, but considering he didn’t stay home sick unless he was on the verge of _dying_, if he did, Goat Face would have hovered all day. At least at school, he could meet Chad.

Then, Chad hadn’t shown up for neither first, nor second, period.

He _really _wanted the day over so that he could search out his friend and verify for himself that there had been no hollow and it had only been his over-reactive imagination. Except now he was _worried_, because it was just as much unlike Chad as it was like him to not show up by at least second period. He knew his friend had a job under-the-table in construction that he worked late nights, early mornings, and sometimes he didn’t get up in time for first period if it had been a long shift. Ichigo was seriously debating if he should ditch Rukia or not when he skipped the rest of the school day after lunch, if Chad didn’t show up by then.

“That acid burn Captain Overbite gave me – you said you healed it with kidō? I didn’t have you pegged as the healer-type.”

Rukia took a massive bite out of the jam-filled bread that he’d ended up buying for her because he was still working out how to ask Yuzu to either let him make a bento for her, or to make two for him, and he remembered what had happened the _last_ time he’d dared to intrude in her domain.

The whole family was still faintly traumatized by her crying at how they didn’t like her food if they wanted to make it themselves, and it had gotten him volunteered for making any late-night grocery runs ever since.

If he asked for two though, he would be subjected to Goat Face bawling at his mother’s giant poster-shrine about how he was a growing boy – just like Karin had when she’d asked for a second lunch when she had evening soccer practices. It wasn’t currently worth the trouble, so he bought her lunch with the understanding that _at some time in the future_, she’d return the favor.

“I _did_ have the best grades in my kidō class. Healing a little wound like that was easy.”

His eye twitched at her smirk.

(A part of him wanted to reach over, catch her in a headlock, and grind his fist into her head, _when did you get so uppity-!_)

She continued, unaware of how he was reaching out towards her before he paused at her words, “But yeah, I’m not. Renji used to laugh whenever I’d practice on him, claiming I didn’t have the _temperament_. My lieutenant though, ran a weekly seminar so that our squad had a better working knowledge than the basics at the Academy, because our captain is a bit sickly. I remember what I learned before he died.”

For a moment, he was blindsided with memories that he didn’t know.

(He could remember a thousand instances of a tall man in a white haori and long hair to match, bent over coughing, pale as the dead except for a fever-flush to his cheeks, and worrying that _this time_ the man would just expire.

He could remember a thousand nights where in between filling out enough paperwork for two, he was studying hand-written booklets he’d gotten from a woman in another white haori, _trying_ to learn whatever was written down on them to _help_ that sickly man.)

Rukia whirled around, a dent in her brows as she shoved a juice carton in his direction, “Never mind that, how do I drink this?”

He automatically grabbed it, not seeing how she narrowed her eyes speculatively at him, “Huh?” – before he pushed it back towards her – “Oh, just poke a straw through it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am of the firm belief that a portion of Squad Thirteen spends time interning at the Fourth for kido-healing knowledge because of Ukitake. They all love that man too much not to what to be able to do whatever they could to help him.


	3. Rukia

“Straw?”

Rukia looked blankly at the carton, wondering what a ‘straw’ _was_. She doubted it was a piece of hay though.

“Hey?!” – not looking up at a new voice as she turned the carton over and over in her hand – “Together again. You must be in love or something.”

“Mizuiro.”

She eventually found the plastic taped onto one side, wrapping a small cylinder tube, which must be this ‘straw’.

“Moron. Does _this_ look like love to you?”

“I dunno. Anyway, deny it all you want. People are gonna talk, though.”

“Whatever. If I cared what people thought, I’d dyed my hair black a long time ago.”

She looked up at that, because while she _knew_ it wouldn’t happen – Ichigo really _did not_ care what people thought about him – she still wanted to see it. The fact he was a Shiba would be undeniable then, when his hair matched that of _every other Shiba she’d ever known_.

The other teen laughed, “That’s true! Didn’t you call that one teacher in middle school who demanded that you stop dying your hair prejudiced against natural red-heads?”

“Yeah, he was a jackass. At least Ochi-sensei doesn’t try and give me detention for my hair color.”

Rukia stopped trying to figure out where the freshly-freed ‘straw’ was supposed to poke through, to listen for a moment.

“He was. He got fired after that year, didn’t you wonder why we didn’t see him in our second year? The local hospital director, Ishida-sensei, invited himself to the next meeting of the school board and implied he would withdraw his financial support if the school didn’t choose teachers less inclined to cast blame on students for their coloring.”

Ichigo raised an eyebrow, “How do you find out these things anyway?”

Mizuiro waved him off, “I have my sources.” – as he’d noticed her looking at him, and smiled – “Hi, Rukia!”

She _knew_ that he was in their class, that conversation was enough of a clue even if she didn’t remember the name or faces of any of their classmates aside from Tatsuki and Orihime now – as Ichigo had taken to walking the girls home when the two of them didn’t rush off to deal with a hollow, and Tatsuki had a tendency to grumble and whack him with her bag for not turning up at a dojo in a few weeks, which then resulted in those two chatting about judo tournaments and judo practice while she fielded questions from Orihime about food when the other girl wasn’t complimenting Tatsuki – _and_ that Ichigo had _just _said his name, “Hello, um . . Mizuiro?”

His smile got wider, “Cha-ching! You remembered my name! And we haven’t even been introduced.”

Ichigo’s voice was deadpan as he reached over and grabbed her juice carton, “I just said your name. She heard me.”

Without turning around to look at him, Mizuiro leaned back to poke him in the cheek, “Shush, carrot-top, I know, let me have this.” – then righted himself with a beaming smile – “Kojima Mizuiro, fifteen years old. _Enchanted_. My hobby is-“

Ichigo passed her back her drink, with the straw poked through the top, voice even more of a deadpan after loudly sipping at his drink, “Picking up chicks?”

She looked between the two, sipping at her drink happily as Mizuiro blanched, “What?! N-no, not that!”

Ichigo had no mercy as he looked directly at her, “Watch out, Rukia. He looks like a dork with that haircut, but he’s a real player.”

“Stop! You’re ruining my rep. Anyway, I only go for older women. I’m harmless to girls my age.”

He went back to sipping at his drink, “Like I said. Watch out.”

She colored a little with wide eyes as Mizuiro looked at Ichigo in confusion, “Huh?”

“Forget I said anything.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Mind if I join you guys?”

Ichigo blatantly ignored how Rukia was a little pink – just because she was a midget, she didn’t have to act like she’d never been even indirectly flirted with – to greet the teenage boy that came out onto the roof, “Hey, Keigo.”

(A part of him snickered, _did she never catch onto Abarai’s flirting? He was really obvious, face as red as his hair._)

The brunet looked around them, “Hm? Chad’s not here?”

Ichigo immediately felt himself frown, “No.” Mizuiro leaned forward on his hands, “I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t been at school all day, I believe.”

“Weird. Wonder where he could be?”

It was lucky his juice was empty when he flexed his hand trying to grab a phantom-bow and crushed the carton, because he wasn’t paying it any attention when he _finally_ got a track on Chad.

The tension in his shoulders dropped even as Keigo went full-blown Extra and whirled around dramatically to point at Rukia, either just now noticing her or just acknowledging it, “Whoa! Is that the beautiful new girl I see?! What brings you _here_?!”

Mizuiro verbally drop-kicked him under the bus, “Ichigo picked her up and brought her here.”

“What?” Belatedly, looking at Mizuiro’s small faux smile, he realized that Mizuiro was still a bit ticked at him for saying he looked like a dork, “Shut up . .”

“_Ichigo_ did?!”

He crossed his arms with a small huff at Keigo’s over-the-top dramatics, like it really was _so_ impossible that he could, even when he knew that yeah, he had a point, it was more Mizuiro’s thing. Of course, though, that wasn’t dramatic enough for Keigo, who came right up into his face with tears of joy running down his cheeks while flashing a thumbs-up, “Good job!!”

Never had Ichigo regretted more when he’d had a school project that required them to work after-school on it, and he’d brought Keigo over for dinner and he’d _met_ Goat Face. Five years and now he had Dramatics at home _and_ at school, almost in stereo of each other.

Keigo whirled around with a salute to Rukia, “Greetings! I’m Asano Keigo!! Welcome to this garden of manliness!!” His arms flailed a little bit in excitement at seeing their things spread out around them, “Wow! This is like a party!”

Mizuiro sipped at his carton of milk, ‘Yeah, a juice, milk, yakisoba, bread party.” – before reading a text off his phone, “Ah.”

Ichigo leaned over to look when Mizuiro tapped his arm.

_11: 44 a.m. **Me: Mimi-chan, have you seen my friend Chad? He wasn’t in class.**_

_12:23 p.m. **Mimi (School Nurse): Mizuiro-kun, your friend isn’t in the Infirmary, but he did just slip onto school grounds. Are we still on for the café after school? XP**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #why yes I did just imply that Keigo is mimicking Isshin because he looks up to him


	5. Chapter 5

Mizuiro was typing some sort of response that he wasn’t interested in – nor did he want to know. The less he knew about the twenty or so women whose numbers were in his friend’s phone, the better.

He was good only knowing that Mizuiro went out on ‘dates’ with these women, and that his friend wasn’t being taken advantage of – or him of them. Even that was arguably _too much information_ in his eyes, but he _most certainly_ did not want to know _more_ without a reason to.

_THWACK!_

“Ow, man!! What the fu-!”

Ichigo looked up to see Keigo was half-sprawled on the ground, pale while looking at a massive delinquent with dyed burnt blond hair in a perm.

“Hey, Kurosaki.”

“Ôshima! You’re off suspension?”

Ôshima sneered, “I ain’t talking to _you_.” – shoving Keigo aside from he was standing up, to shove himself right in Ichigo’s face, “Kurosaki, when you gonna dye that carrot-piss hair black? Why you always trying to look like me?”

His hand flexed, crushing the juice box completely into a ball as his eyes narrowed at Ôshima, “Like I keep telling you, this _is_ my natural hair color. I don’t look _anything _like you.” – (**_who the hell does this fuck-face think he _is_?! Challengers to the throne-!!_**) – “Now fly away, drag queen, before you tick me off.”

He didn’t know about how black licked at the edges of his sclera as red sparks flicked in and out of existence around the fingers of his right hand, nor would he have cared in the moment with how he was _already_ ticked off because of the other teen’s treatment of Keigo but he would give him one chance to back down.

“Drag queen!! Why you-!”

Keigo slid in front of him, hands up pacifyingly, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! No fighting! Okay, guys?!”

He was shoved aside, “Beat it, Asano! I’m going to kill him!!”

Ichigo stood up in one sinuous motion, completely unaware of how there was an aura leaking out around him that cackled with teeth bared, just shy of being consciously recognized by anyone other than Rukia whose eyes widened at it, “You can try all you like. I’ll stomp you into next week!”

Ôshima blinked, before his eyes narrowed as he brushed that small voice in his head that said he was _heavily_ outmatched aside, “Hmph, I knew I’d have to set you straight someday. Today’s the day! Let’s go, dingle-berry. We’ll see whose thtronger!!”

Keigo scuttled backwards to Mizuiro, who had started recording once he’d seen Ôshima as a ‘just in case’, “B-brass knuckles! Wait, Ôshima! You could do-!”

Ichigo slow-blinked, then smiled faintly.

“Ha ha . . it’s too late to apologize-“

Because there was _Chad_.


	6. Rukia

Rukia had been pinned to the rooftop with wide eyes when Ichigo had, in a way he hadn’t against any hollow he’d fought so far, had shifted gears from _opponent_ to _threat_.

In some ways, it was a lot like that first fight, with the way he moved completely unlike how _shinigami_ fought.

In some ways, it was a lot like seeing someone else from deep in the Rukongai fighting, where they wielded _intent_ and _presence_ like the weapons their souls didn’t know how to manifest yet.

He felt _dangerous_.

And like Kenpachi-taichou, his reiatsu felt almost _blood-thirsty_.

Then it was gone, pulled back like it never was except she was near-panting with the weight off her chest, and her eyes never left Ichigo.

Even with the arrival with the boy whose above-average human-levels of reiatsu felt tinted with Ichigo’s in a similar manner as his was with hers.


	7. Chapter 7

Ichigo didn’t watch Ôshima go flying.

“Oof! Owowowow!”

“Ôshima?!”

Instead, he looked at Chad, taking in the bandages under his hair, on his cheek, hand, wrist and arm below his sleeve.

“Chad!” The taller teen gave a shallow nod, and a hand-wave in acknowledgement.

Keigo beamed, “Thanks Chad! But take it easy, you could have knocked him off the roof.”

Chad nodded in quick jerks, a little bit sheepish at his unintentional strength.

“Hey, Chad, how’d you get hurt?”

He looked directly at him, voice completely even, “Yesterday, it was my back. An I-beam fell on me.” – Ichigo felt his eye twitch at Chad’s lack of concern like he _wasn’t _talking about at least several hundred kilos’ worth of metal falling on him, even as Keigo and Mizuiro showed more appropriate reactions, “An I-beam?!” - “And today, I hurt my hand grocery shoppin’ before class. I ran into a motorcycle.”

His arms flailed around a little, because Orihime was bad enough – just in the last week he’d been walking her and Tatsuki home, she’d almost ran into three telephones while energetically talking, tripped up a fleet of stairs to her apartment, and got knocked into the street twice, all of which she’d treated like nothing even as he’d doctored some of her scrapes and bruises just so she at least didn’t look like a battered housewife – but Chad wasn’t any better right now, “Ran into?! Motorcycle!? You gotta be more _careful_!!”

“Well . . the guy driving it got hurt real bad, so I carried him to the hospital.”

Keigo sweat-dropped, “So . . that’s why you were late. But geez, you must be made of steel. Like a tank.”

Ichigo tried to find his last bit of calm, because Chad was _fine_ – if incredibly unlucky in the last couple of days – but this wasn’t even the first time Chad had run into a motorcycle in the couple of years that they’d been friends, so there wasn’t any _real_ cause to worry.

Chad shifted something on his shoulder before he put a bird-cage down.

He immediately focused in on it because he _didn’t _have any calm left, as Keigo peered closer, “Huh? You got a bird? That’s a cockatiel, right?”

“Hello! My name is Shibata Yûichi! What’s your name?”

Ichigo _knew_ the bird was being possessed by another soul, and he could _almost_ sense something more.

“Whoa! Awesome! He talks really good! My name’s Keigo Asano! Can you say _Keigo_?”

Ichigo tuned out Keigo to look back at Chad, not sure why he was concerned but just knowing that he _was_, “Where’d you get the cockatiel?”

“Yesterday . . a guy gave it to me.”

Keigo immediately whirled around, finger jutting out at Chad, “Hey!! Bad habit! Tell us the whole story! Don’t be lazy!! Spill it, tell us everything!”

Chad’s lips twitched down in the faintest pout, “I did tell the whole story.”

Keigo flailed his hands around a little with inarticulate sputter, because this was Chad, the bird fit his ‘little and cute’ weakness and it honestly _could_ be the whole story – the guy wanted to get rid of the bird, and Chad took it no questions asked. Ichigo raised an eyebrow at the taller teen, because that _wasn’t_ everything; Chad was just as bad as he was about mentioning details that he didn’t consider important or of any connection.

He shrugged lightly, and Ichigo understood that there _was_ something more but he didn’t want to freak Keigo out, as their friend was low-key high-strung, so he let it go for now.


	8. Rukia

“Don’t worry.”

Rukia watched how Ichigo flicked his eyes towards her for a moment, before they returned to watching Chad and the cockatiel with slow blinks.

“There’s _something_ in that bird, but it’s harmless. Probably just a lonely soul.”

His gaze then shifted out towards the town with a frown.

“Still, if we leave it, it’ll eventually become a hollow. We should perform konsô on it tonight.”

He nodded. It made Rukia think that he was _finally_ understanding what it meant to be a shinigami, because the moment he’d felt the presence of the human soul in the bird he’d been concerned for others, without even a weak grumble about how it wasn’t their concern as he had those first few nights when she’d dragged him out and about to perform konsô on the lingering souls he already knew about.

Then his eyes narrowed with _intent_, and for a moment his eyes were littered liberally with gold sparks, “Then, regardless of what your little pager has told you, we’re going to double-check there isn’t a hollow in town.”

He blinked, and the sparks were gone – or she’d just now noticed them, the gold hidden in the amber-brown as it was – but her gaze didn’t leave him. The gold was another thing on the growing list of _curious_ things about Ichigo, which were increasingly making her think that Ichigo was not as _human_ as he appeared, was at least a shinigami in blood and not just with the _soul_ of one.

Which didn’t even touch on how she _still_ couldn’t tell if he was just really _bad_ at reiatsu-sensing, or just really intuitive, because there were moments like this, where he seemed to_ know_ something was there before she did, and moments like how it took a week and directly _seeing_ her to know she’d been living in his closet.


	9. Chapter 9

Ichigo waved Rukia on when Mizuiro and Keigo started back to the classroom with the end of lunch, lingering a bit longer as Chad slowly straightened and grabbed the bird from where its cage had been sitting next to him. She hesitated, giving him a narrow-eyed look that told him she would later pester him about why he’d wanted a moment alone with his friend, but he wasn’t looking at her any longer.

He was looking at the cockatiel, absently tracking how its little chest fluttered quicker under his scrutiny.

(A part of him sneered, **_he’s hardly worth a snack._**)

There was _something_ about it that was _familiar_, a sense of déjà vu like he’d been in this scenario before. He _knew_ why he hardly wanted to let the bird out of his sight, but it didn’t make any _sense_.

(Why was he thinking _hollow-bait_?)

Chad shifted the bird out of his sight, but he hardly needed to look at the white-feathered bird to _see_ it – or more accurately, the shade of a little boy overlapping it.

“What was the rest of the story?”

They walked side-by-side off the roof, then back down the stairs with Ichigo leading the way, “It’s supposedly a cursed cockatiel. All of his previous owners are said to have developed terrible luck and died shortly after, with the bird passed on to someone else.”

“Ah. I see why you didn’t say anything. Keigo would have dragged you to every priest or mystic he could have tracked down if he’d heard, in an attempt to lift the ‘curse’.” He crossed his arms behind his head, overtly aware of how the dead-boy-in-the-bird was watching him curiously and doing his best to not acknowledge being able to see him. It was one thing to _know_ he was there, it would be another thing entirely to say that what he could see of the translucent spirit wasn’t quite _right_, having clearly died of unnatural causes.

Pausing at the bottom of the steps, Ichigo tilted his head to the side with narrow eyes as _something_ dragged claws across his senses.

(A part of him had eyes of gold and a grin full of sharp teeth, roaring, **_come and try me bastard!! I’ll EAT _YOU_!!_**

Another part of him gripped an ebony bow with a deep-red sheen, white-knuckling it, **an _evil_ soul is near.**)

He didn’t pause for long, “Would you mind coming over after school? Yuzu has been asking about getting a pet cat, and letting her see first-hand what taking care of a pet is like could sway Goat Face one way or another. And we could do some research into this ‘curse’ while she spoils the bird rotten.”


	10. Chapter 10

The entire school day Ichigo felt something scratching at the edge of his senses, testing boundaries, but not once did Rukia’s pager go off.

The first break after lunch, after Rukia had left for a moment, Tatsuki had looked at him, a question in her eyes because she could _just about_ sense it too.

(A part of him quirked a wry smile, _she always was better at this than me, and apparently will always pick it up faster too_.)

He nodded, because he wouldn’t lie to her and say it was nothing, but he couldn’t _quite_ say what _it_ was other than a _threat_. Orihime looked between the two of them, before Tatsuki smiled with just a little too much tooth – her back just a touch too stiff – for her to play this off to her friend, and said something about how she’d heard of a sweet shop out on the outskirts of town with some _unique_ flavors.

Orihime looked between them again, a glint in her eyes that said she knew _exactly_ what they were doing, before she smiled, bubbly and eager to go.

Saying something about how maybe _they_ had a chili-pepper green tea candy her brother had brought home once, and she’d had no luck finding since.

(For some reason, Ichigo thought _yes_.

If this was the shop he vaguely remembered visiting once a month with his mom, sometimes dragging his dad along – _because neither of you have any sense of _time_ here Isshin!_ – but hadn’t gone to, hadn’t _thought of_, since her death, then he was _very_ sure she’d find something like that. The weird blond man hadn’t seemed to sell anything _but_ the _odd_ flavors of candy.)

Orihime all but dragged Tatsuki out the door after the bell rang for the end of the day.

Mizuiro gave him a little cheeky salute as he left, to likely meet up with the school nurse if his texting at lunch had meant anything.

Keigo rushed out, yelling something about his sister belatedly texting him the shopping list for dinner and needing to go _right now_ if he wanted to get the food before she got home and started cooking with whatever was already there.

Chad lingered as Rukia gathered their school books, the ones that they’d been sharing and that he’d taken to reading ahead in so she had them to follow along with and thus were filled with her commentary.

Ichigo picked up the bird cage from where it had been sitting at the foot of Chad’s desk, the bird apparently having fallen asleep sometime after lunch as it was just waking up with the noise of the mass exodus out of class. Somehow having slept through their third period teacher demanding to know _why it was there_ before looking at Chad and how he’d been prepared to leave with the bird, and just- letting it go.

The bird bopped its head excitedly, dancing back and forth on its perch, “School’s over? What’s next?”

Rukia gave him an expectant look from behind the bird even as he passed it back to Chad, “Homework. Current events project.”


	11. Tatsuki Interlude

Tatsuki had been dubious the farther from school they went, heading not in the well-established pattern of the last couple of weeks where Orihime was living with her and her family within a block or two of Ichigo, but farther south towards the outskirts of town. It wasn’t quite a residential area, more of an industrial one, yet _not_, but it was edging on _sketchy_.

This was the area of town that when Ichigo got challenge letters from delinquents, they wanted him to meet at.

Orihime hummed and skipped through the area like it was the park, and she _knew_ Orihime was playing up her natural bubbliness – she wouldn’t have seen the way the other girl chewed on her lip absently, frowning slightly in worry, if she was feeling as care-free as she acted usually. They both were worried with how after lunch, they had _just-about_ been seeing a little boy out of the corner of their eye when they looked at Chad’s new cockatiel.

Tatsuki had felt uneasy all night, and the feeling had only grown during the day, compounded by how on-edge Ichigo had been, but seeing that cockatiel, and Ichigo’s look when he came back with Chad after lunch, she _knew_ it was justified. It had been the _only_ reason why she’d thought to mention that sweet shop that her mother had mentioned in passing a couple of days earlier.

As in: _Mitsumiya has a strange sweet shop, really sketchy looking, but I poked my head in and it’s got some _strange_ flavors. _You_ should take Orihime sometime, I think she’d . . like it._

As expected, Orihime had been excited. That hadn’t been at _all_ played up.

She was having second thoughts though, she could have _sworn_ she just saw a kid following them since crossing into Mitsumiya, bouncing from behind cover to behind cover. Badly.

The bright red hair was a give-away.

For a moment, she got nostalgic for the days when Ka- _Ichigo_ used to hide behind thin trees, the ones too thin to hide him even if his green hakama _had_ blended in somewhat, watching her with big eyes as she’d practiced- practiced _judo_.

Orihime giggled, eyes sparkling with amusement as she looked back at her, clearly having seen the boy and the look on her own face, and found it funny. Her cheeks went pink, “Kurosaki-kun used to do that?”

Her lips quivered, and Tatsuki imagined she was imaging a little Ichigo with chubby cheeks and his scowl, who _had_ been _adorable_, “Yep, just like that. Always picked the skinniest things to hide behind when he used to follow me around after I soundly beat him into the dirt, watching me practice with these _big_ eyes.”

If she was thinking of Ichigo with dark hair and a green hakama with a familiar white swirl, just as much as Ichigo with his bright hair and that same swirl atop a cross, sewn onto his brown obi, it didn’t mean anything. _It didn’t_.

She definitely hadn’t been reminded of how when they’d met at the dojo years ago, it hadn’t felt like a first meeting even as it had felt so _right_ that they had met and very shortly after, she had soundly beat him in a fight, then that he’d follow her around with big eyes. They had just been friends for so long that it _felt_ like they’d known each other _forever_.

Orihime broke out into fresh giggles, and she joined her, because it didn’t _matter_ which Ichigo was in her memories, little Ichigo had _always _been _adorable_.

A third set of giggles, male, had Tatsuki quieting as she immediately honed in on a blonde man in traditional wear with _geta_, leaning against a wall not far in front of them, waving a fan in front of his face. She was narrowing her eyes at him, because he was _familiar_.

For a moment, she was seeing him in black with a white haori, an adoring look on his face as he gazed at the back of a darker-skinned woman with dark purple hair.

For a moment, she was seeing him walk into Ichigo’s house with another man, and Ichigo’s mother _smiling_ – friendly, but also, _terrifying_ – at him.

(Tatsuki had always wanted to be just like _Masaki_ when she grew up, just, casually terrifying. Ichigo hadn’t been the only child to look at the older woman with adoration.)

“Hey kiddies~ Want to try some sweets~”

She opened her mouth to _deny, deny, deny_, straightening as she waited _eagerly_ for the man to make a move that gave her _full_ justification to beat him to a pulp without a single regard for whatever familiarity he had, for how _creepy_ he was – when Orihime squealed, “You look and sound just like Sora-nii described!”

Before Tatsuki could do anything, Orihime had rushed over, bouncing in place a little like an excited little kid, “Does this mean _you_ have chili-pepper green tea candies?”

Tatsuki was fully prepared to get between her friend and this _strange_ man, give him a _hard _jab to his throat if he acted at _all _like Chizuru and reached for Orihime’s bouncing bosom that was _just_ below his chin, but he just. Blinked.

There was one full second of surprise in those shadowed eyes, before he tittered, and waved the hand not holding his fan to the alleyway next to him, “I do! I also have jalapeño red bean jam buns, pickled pineapple suckers, peppermint leek toffees, for the _discerning_ customer.”

Tatsuki was left there for several long moments, just _staring_ after them as Orihime would ask if he had _this_ or _that _strange candy combination, and he _would_ – or he would get excited and intrigued about the one she’d describe and promise to make some.

She couldn’t describe the feeling in her chest as she trailed after Orihime without really absorbing what they were saying, absently keeping an eye trained on his hands and eyes just in case he _did_ turn out to be a pervert.

Somehow, she didn’t think _horror_ described how she felt at there being two people in this world with Orihime’s taste-buds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #did I just suggest Orihime & Kisuke friendship/bonding over strange foods? Did I? I walked into this KNOWING that if anyone sold the strange food – the strange sweets – that Orihime would like, I knew that it WOULD be Kisuke #but that never asked the question of WHY IS HE MAKING THOSE SORT OF SWEETS #he clearly doesn’t sell very many by location alone #he might have some normal ones, but this is KISUKE #he WOULD make some strange ones because he COULD #I DIDN’T MEAN FOR THIS TO HAPPEN BUT NOW I CAN’T UNSEE HOW right THIS FEELS
> 
> #also: for a woman that has not been present, Masaki has SO much impact #she’s the secret star of this ‘verse #Happy Belated Mother’s Day Masaki! June 2k19


	12. Rukia

Rukia hung back a little as Ichigo and Chad walked to his home, partially because she was trying to figure out if it was best to pretend to leave for now.

Partially because she was watching how they interacted.

Watching how they interacted with the world.

She was so used to seeing a wide range of colors for people – Renji’s red hair, Tousen-taichou’s dark skin, Hitsugaya-taichou and Ukitake-taichou’s white hair – that Ichigo’s hair and Chad’s non-Japanese-ness didn’t stick out to her. She watched how they got this wide berth of space when they walked, were looked at differently, _treated_ differently, because of these things.

Ichigo had gotten into fights like what had happened on the roof, several times since she’d met him, but she’d always chocked it up to being because of his take-no-bullshit attitude, and that the commentary about his hair color as them just trying to get under his skin.

Watching them out and about together was turning some of those assumptions on their head, particularly as they detoured when they saw a woman with Chad’s skin and hair, being hassled, the men butchering a language she didn’t know but made Chad go as stiff as a board and Ichigo narrow his eyes angrily.

Rukia followed them when they dashed over, Ichigo not hesitating to slide himself between the woman and the men as Chad gently maneuvered the woman to being behind him.

The men sneered, “So now there’s three _foreigners_.” – giving Chad and the woman a nasty look.

Ichigo pulled back his fist, but Rukia slipped in front of him before he could do more than that, and kicked the man in the balls, “Fuck off, bastard!”

Then she grabbed Ichigo’s hand and pulled until they were running, with Chad and the woman coming along. Ichigo took the lead after a block or two, and was leading them through the streets, when out of the corner of her eye she saw a white mask, and she turned to look, as did Ichigo. He was _already_ narrowing his eyes in its direction though, hand reaching at his side.

The hollow reached for the bird on Chad’s back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #junko made an excellent point in Academy Blue’s 15th chapter comments about how Ichigo, Yuzu, and Chad all might have been treated because they looked foreign
> 
> #As such you will pry out of my cold dead hands the idea that Chad isn't some sort of unofficial community leader to the Japanese-Mexicans in Karakura #and that Ichigo doesn't know a bit of Spanish just from exposure with Chad


	13. Chapter 13

Ichigo _felt_ the moment that the hollow stopped hanging at a distance.

(A part of him shrieked, **_come _on_ bastard-!_**)

He was turning, hand reaching to pull- from his waist, eyes narrowed and glinting gold.

He forgot he was not in shihakushō blacks. He forgot his zanpaku-tō wasn’t at his hip.

He expected a weapon, and for a second, it was _there_.

_It was there_, and he swung out as Chad twisted instinctively away from the hollow as the cockatiel shrilly shrieked. The hollow _howled_ as its skin opened up on its chest, fleeing even as his fingers closed on _nothing_.

Chad caught his feet in the street, and the woman with them let out a wordless sound of _horror_ because a car was speeding straight towards him.

He tossed her the bird as it hit him.

Ichigo was running forward to where Chad had been knocked aside to, even as a second car hit the bumper of the first.

He was kneeling at the side of his dazed friend as a squeal of their brakes ripped through the air, narrowing his eyes at the blood pooling beneath dark hair from a nasty gash above one eye.

The fourth car barely managed to slow to a stop with a shriek to _just_ tag the bumper of the third car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #mild allusion to the first appearance of the Grand Fisher #cursed be his name
> 
> #I can't wait to get to that arc #it will be so satisfying #The Masaki Question will have some actual information about what happened to her addressed #because what happened in the Quincy Arc is not what happened here


	14. Chapter 14

Chad’s pupils were massively dilated, but he still struggled to sit up even as Ichigo held him down with one hand and with the other briskly felt for the sort of injuries he’d been trained to not move unless it was too dangerous not to.

The woman knelt and brushed one hand through Chad’s hair, murmuring something in Spanish that Ichigo only vaguely understood to be a plea to not hurt himself worse unnecessarily trying to be a man. She put the bird down next to him at its wordless worried squawking, beating its wings against the bars of the cage in an attempt to get closer.

He looked at her, “The Kurosaki Clinic is just down the street, can you warn them they have incoming? I’ll come with Chad.”

She nodded, and ran in the direction he indicated in.

Ichigo looked at Rukia as he helped his friend to his feet, slinging one arm around his shoulders, “Do you know any kidô that could help?”

She chewed on her lip as she wrapped an arm around Chad’s middle and helped drag Chad towards the clinic, “Kidô was my strong point, but healing wounds like this go well past what they teach at the Academy. Unohana-taichou personally trains the healers that deal with head wounds, and even they serve at least decade with Unohana-taichou and the Fourth before she’ll consider it.”

Chad’s head lolled towards him, “Yûichi . .”

The bird fluttered against the edges of its cage, “Chad, are you okay?! Chad!!”

Ichigo looked directly at the spirit he could see overlapping the bird, before picking up the cage with his free hand, “I got him, Chad, but, geez, worry about yourself a little?”

Chad laughed softly, “Pot meet kettle.”


	15. Chapter 15

Ichigo just barely managed to make it across the threshold of the Clinic when he heard Goat Face.

“I told you, four cars!”

“You can’t take that many?! Well, they gotta go somewhere! We can’t treat all of them here!!”

“Listen! Tell your boss it’s a request from Kurosaki! He’ll find me some free beds real quick! Do it!!”

Yuzu shrieked when she saw him, “Eeek!” Which drew Goat’s Face attention away from where he’d slammed the clinic phone into the receiver, “Ichigo!”

Rukia shifted out of the way for his dad to take over her half of Chad’s weight, and together they led him to a chair where his dad carefully peeled Chad’s shirt off his back to get at a wound neither Ichigo nor Rukia knew what to do with, as it was beyond their respective avenues of medical knowledge.

Yuzu gasped, pausing in the doorway with the box of medical supplies she’d brought over, “Whoa . . what a horrible wound.”

Karin didn’t, taking command of the other victims of the car wreck, shuffling them into rooms.

Ichigo saw the moment that Isshin didn’t just _see_ the hollow’s claw marks and soul-deep wound – but _recognized_ them. Knew what they were and that this was different than the hollow-bait wound Sora had given Orihime that he’d healed, but that this had been an attempt by the hollow on Chad’s soul. His eyes narrowed, before feather-light fingertips with the faintest flickers of the same light he’d seen from Rukia’s kidô danced across Chad’s back.

Still, Goat Face acted like he was doing nothing more than tracing the edges of the strange burn, testing at the depth of the damage, even while Ichigo glanced at Rukia to see if she was seeing this.

(A part of him restlessly flexed fingers, mimicking Isshin’s hands without bothering to hide that it was the pointer, middle and palm that was the true motion of action, and tried to remember the _words_.)

She wasn’t; instead, she was frowning in the direction of the bird. His eyes went wide at how Karin was kneeling in front of the bird with haunted eyes, the shade of Yûichi holding out a hand for her to shake that she’d grasped unlike her usual willful denial.

Karin didn’t blink once even as he moved to her without a second thought, lifting her up in her arms where she stared unseeingly into his shoulder, clutching at his shirt with faintly shaking hands.

Yûichi hiccupped with tears in his eyes, then sunk down completely into the bird, making pitiful little screeches in between, “Ma- Mama!”

Yuzu didn’t hesitate to try and comfort the bird, stroking at its little feathered chest as she cuddled it to her chest, before she left the room with it to check on their other patients.

Rukia stayed back with Chad and his father as he carried Karin upstairs, worried but not quite _worried_.

(A part of him knew that the little boy had partially – entirely by accident – possessed his sister, reaching out in instinct to someone not much older than him for a body he no longer had, and that right now, her mind was trying to sort out her memories from his.

It happened fairly often with children spirits after all, who weren’t at all like adults who had to _try_ to reach out for a body that they _knew_ in ways beyond just mentally was _not_ theirs, and very easily could slip into another child’s body. It just was easier with those that had the _sight_.

Which did not at all explain why Yûichi hadn’t possessed Karin – and was still inhabiting a _bird_, which even for a child, shouldn’t have happened very easily, thus suggesting there was something more to this than the boy ‘just’ being a lonely spirit.)


	16. Rukia

If any doubt had remained after Orihime had left this clinic _without_ distinctly feeling like hollow-bait that she wasn’t looking at the reincarnated soul of Shiba-taichou, but Shiba-taichou in the flesh – or well, _gigai_ – then watching him perform kidô rid her of it.

Even if it was kidô that any graduate, unseated or not, could perform without trouble if they had any talent in the demon arts. The exceptions being people like Renji who had _no aptitude at all_.

Still, considering that she would have trouble doing even that level of kidô right now, it wasn’t any sort of small feat for someone who her senses still read as being a just-above-average Plus Soul.

The gaze he flicked her way after Ichigo left with one of his sisters was _assessing_.

He didn’t say anything to her as he helped Chad to a bed, not until he came back.

“Kuchiki-san, so we meet again. I hope my son hasn’t been giving you too much trouble?”

She wondered for a moment what sort of long-term effects of Ichigo’s unusually high-for-a-human spiritual pressure had on the souls around him – as the last time she’d stood in front of him, he couldn’t seem to see her in her shihakushō nor be able to do anything to the low-level hollow that had attacked his family, and now he was capable of kidō; and Tatsuki had been able to _see_ the hollowified Sora while reading as a just-above-average plus soul as well.

“No more than what one expects from a Shiba. He’s performing admirably as a substitute, the only thing he sincerely lacks is experience but that’s expected, Shiba-taichou.”

He laughed, “He’s Shiba through-and-through then! And that’s just a matter of time, and he’ll have plenty of that.”

Then he waved her off to join Ichigo upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #I honestly feel a little attacked right now #like THIS WAS NOT PLANNED #I ACTUALLY HAD A PLAN #well – after I stalled once Chad was at the clinic #I HAD A PLAN #nowhere did I plan for Isshin and Rukia to have a convo #yet here we are
> 
> *nearly two months later when posting*  
#It's actually one of the more organic spots for said convo to happen by this point?


	17. Chapter 17

Ichigo tucked Karin into bed, then stepped back a step or two.

His face was screwed up into a terrible scowl, because there was a kidō he knew – but how did he _know_? – that would protect her – them – while he was elsewhere, but he couldn’t _remember_ the words.

(A part of him grit his teeth, fingers curled down aside from pointer and middle, tracing shapes and _focused_. The _words_ wouldn’t come, but intent?

What had he’d been told once?

The words were a focus, but it was _intent_ that was true determination of a kidō, as long as he had the strength to power it and the control to shape it.)

Then his eyes caught on the bracelet with the circle and cross hanging from it, that had been his mother’s and that the girls tended to keep on their bedside in lieu of just one of them wearing it.

(Another part of him _knew_ there was _another_ way to protect them, other than kidō.

That part of him could remember how his mother’s hands had shined with a frost-blue light as she chanted in another language, tracing shapes as he fell asleep, protecting him from monsters as he slept.

But he didn’t know _how_.)

He didn’t know when his head had bowed, hands balled into fists, but it snapped up and his eyes were more _gold_ than not, black licking at the white, when a second hollow scratched across his senses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Any guesses for the second hollow??


	18. Chapter 18

The moment Rukia knocked him out of his body, Ichigo was out of the clinic – not even noticing how he’d again, phased right through a wall – and rushing down the street towards where the car accident had happened not an hour earlier. His eyes were quick to find the large hollow sitting in the street there, large clawed hands curled lightly into the ground as its armored bulk pulled itself up off – or _out – _of the ground. He couldn’t actually see if there were feet _on_ or _in_ the ground with the way their ridged back hid much of their short legs.

He didn’t hesitate to pull his zanpaku-tō off his back and swing, not while the first hollow was AWOL somewhere in Karakura and having already hurt Chad.

Only, not only did his blade skitter off it with a shrill screech, but as it did, it brought his hands closer to the ridged back, and pulling away revealed the ridges were spines – or something that acted a _lot _like porcupine spines – that hooked themselves into his skin. Some were digging into his skin – but were also _not_?

This wasn’t the time to dwell on how the hollow’s spines had seemed more to _catch_ on his skin long enough to come out but not so much as to actually _dig in_ though, and he quickly dodged the clawed hand that started swinging in his direction.

Seeing its mask though almost had him faltering back, as an animal skull stared back at him – lower jaw gone – with what looked like _rows_ of needle-teeth filling its mouth, hot puffs of air misting the air as its breath whistled through. It stared at him for a second, then outright _dismissed_ him to scream, “Yûichi! Where are you?!”

It continued to scream out for Yûichi for the several seconds it took Ichigo to process that he’d been _ignored_ – which he never had been by a hollow, as either he became their new target or they rightly viewed him as a major threat to their next meal – then to move back into action, rushing forward to attack again.

It just shifted to where his blade bounced off an armored shoulder, not seeming to be able to move fast enough to dodge completely – but also because it paid him only enough attention that he couldn’t get at its mask, still yelling for the boy-spirit in Chad’s cockatiel.

His eyes narrowed, gold glinting in them, and he _moved_, suddenly in front of it with his blade already in motion, cutting through its mask.

It _howled_ as the mask broke from the top of the right side, then splintering off just above its teeth and across the absent nose; rearing back as light hit its face. Then it dived into the ground, phasing through and outside his ability to sense, gone before he could process that this hollow had a _second_ mask, one that had cracked to reveal a woman’s brown eye wild with grief and protective fury.


	19. Rukia

She was panting as she caught up to where Ichigo had stopped at the sight of the earlier car accident, the street mostly cleared but still in the process of clean-up. He stood there, stiff-backed and white-knuckled, clutching the handle of his zanpaku-tō.

“Ichigo! This hollow! Did you take care of it?”

There was an undeniable gold glint in his eyes as he turned towards her, putting his weapon up onto his back, “No. She has two masks, one atop the other. I broke the first and cracked the second, and she got away before I could get another hit in.”

Her eyes went wide, “What?! _Two_ masks!? I’ve never-!”

His lip curled up slightly as he glared out into the distance, eyes flicking around as he tracked something, “Me neither. Must be an evolution quirk because she was heavily armored all around, a verifiable _tank_.”

Rukia couldn’t stop staring at him, at that _gold_ in his eyes – at how much it was eerily reminding her of something else, particularly with that glint of _something_ deep in his eyes, mixed up among a dozen other things that were there and gone again, before he started back to the clinic at a quick pace, not seeming to notice how she stared, “She was screaming for the spirit possessing the bird. That’s _two_ hollows _specifically_ hunting that kid.”

She rushed to keep up, eyes not drifting from him – or how out of the corner of her eyes, there was a glint to the edge of his zanpaku-tō, a dark red almost black light running jaggedly up it – agreeing with him on how weird this whole thing felt.

Hollows hunted opportunistically a majority of the time after they ate the souls of their family, rarely deviating from what was easy prey to specific targets. The only reasons she could think of where they didn’t were when their reiatsu was too high for them to pass up – as was the case of the Kurosaki family, with each of them well above the average Plus Soul, even Yuzu who (still) only saw the faintest of blobs when it came to spirits – or there were so many strong feelings associated – love _or_ hate – that they couldn’t help but act on them once they no longer were focused solely on their still living family.

Nothing about _anything_ recently, though, had made much sense since she’d stumbled across Ichigo.


	20. Chapter 20

Even before he got back to the clinic, Ichigo knew Chad had left.

(The part of him that was a big brother, had _always_ been a big brother, wanted to rush into the clinic and check on Karin now that the immediate threat had passed.

That part of him didn’t care one iota about how he _knew_ she was fine, that at this point, the partial possession was worn off and she’d be feeling exhausted and nauseous while her reiatsu and body got re-aligned, probably even sleeping already. The memories would sort themselves out quickest if she was.

Only he wasn’t _just_ a big brother; he was a <strike>substitute</strike> shinigami. It was his _duty_ to take care of the hollows as quickly as he could, before there was more collateral damage. He’d have to trust that Isshin would take care of Karin in his absence.)

He would have hardly paused in the street, just chased after him, now that he’d decided to do so, but he wouldn’t run around blindly with two hollows chasing after Chad and his cockatiel when he didn’t know either where they were or where the hollows were.

“Rukia! Can you find anything?”

“I can’t sense anything from him, and there are no messages from Soul Society.” Her eyes were narrowed, but not at him, looking out at the town where he could _almost_ recognize where Chad was, “We can’t locate the hollows until either of them shows up in the real world to attack Chad, so we have to wait until one of them moves out of the Dangai, the space between Soul Society and the World of the Living, so Soul Society can alert us of it.”

Right now, all Ichigo knew was that he was still _there_, alive, and that he was on the move.

“Chad’s in serious danger. If we wait for an attack, it’ll be too late.”

He needed more than that if he wanted to get to Chad before one of the hollows could, “Chad’s cockatiel, can we use it to detect the presence of a hollow? One of them is tracking Yûichi, and will no doubt show up around them soon. We find them, we find the hollow.”

“What? That’s- it’s not-”

Ichigo ignored her sputtering, a part of him _knowing_ it was possible, and breathed in, closed his eyes, then _focused_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #the lines between what-was-Kaien and what-is-Ichigo get a little . . blurred


	21. Rukia

Rukia watched with wide eyes as Ichigo’s spiritual pressure changed into a pattern she _knew_, one that he _shouldn’t_ have been able to yet. Not that she’d found _that_ had ever stopped him from doing what he needed to in the moment.

Like how he couldn’t _intentionally_ phase through walls – she’d tried to get him to since he’d shown he’d _could_, and he couldn’t quite grasp the concept – but put him in a battle, and there was no hesitation, just _doing_.

“Um . . Ichigo?”

She couldn’t help but think of what Shiba-taichou had said about him only needing time to get the experience he lacked – and thinking even he underestimated how much time. If perhaps he’d just been a Shiba by blood, and thus a shinigami in soul if not yet officially, maybe he’d have the decades and longer to get the experience he lacked, but he wasn’t. She was _sure_ – and growing more and more sure the more he acted with knowledge he would have had no exposure to in the World of the Living – that he was the reincarnation of Shiba-fukutaichou. His learning curve was just too exponential, picking up skills with each new experience, to _not_ be.

The sight of tens of spirit ribbons – _reiraku_ – materializing around them, was just further proof. Only seasoned shinigami could see them, and it’d only been a couple of _weeks_ since he’d manifested a zanpaku-tō.

She’d had _sixty years_ and she didn’t think that she could sense the human soul hiding in that cockatiel at this distance, particularly with it being partially eclipsed by the cockatiel’s soul, making it that much harder to detect.

Rukia was turning at the sight of one ribbon, _recognizing_ it for the one they wanted seconds before Ichigo was abruptly reaching out and grasping it firmly, tugging it towards himself.

“Gotcha!!”

Then he was off in a sprint, “This way!”


	22. Chapter 22

“There! It’s Chad!!”

Ichigo booked it the second Chad turned around a corner ahead of them, half expecting him to start running away right away, but his eyes passed right over him to Rukia, then widened and _then_ he started running away.

“Hey!!”

It was only because Chad wasn’t a sprinter but a marathoner that let Ichigo not fall behind, “Dammit, Chad, stop running!! You need my help!!”

Rukia was panting at his back, trying to keep up in her gigai but it wasn’t built for this sort of sustained sprinting and she was lagging, “Moron . . !! He can’t . . _hear_ you!”

That was when he remembered he’d left his body in the clinic to deal with the hollow, and Chad couldn’t _see_ him right now as just a soul.

He looked at Rukia, looked at Chad, looked back at Rukia running as fast as she could but lagging and only lagging more with each step while Chad wasn’t slowing in the slightest, then narrowed his eyes.

The corner of his lips quirked up for a second.

Ichigo grabbed Rukia by the collar, then threw her bodily at Chad.

“ICCHHHIIIGGOOOO!!”

(A part of him cackled in amusement at the image of Rukia shrieking his name as she flailed through the air towards Chad, **_fly, midget, fly!!_**)

Chad turned and caught her with ease, eyes flicking around trying to find him even as he set her down on the ground, “Ichigo?”

He squinted in his direction, as if he could _almost_ see him – and he knew that expression well, Yuzu wore it a lot when Karin had had to say something about his ghost tag-alongs and she was trying to see for herself but couldn’t. Chad couldn’t see him, he knew that, but he still seemed to almost be able to still _sense_ his presence.

Then Chad shook his head as if to clear it, like he’d just been seeing things for a moment, before looking at Rukia, “It’s dangerous, you should go home for now.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before he was running again, taking a sharp turn at the next corner and quickly out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #he didn’t hesitate at the opportunity to punt Rukia off the Sokyoku #he’d had to have at least THOUGHT about punting her across large spaces before #just because it would be easier/faster to throw her than have her cross that space on her own #:3
> 
> #It was so hard to resist putting the meme here today #you know the one I mean #X3


	23. Chapter 23

Rukia immediately began giving chase, “Chad! Wait! We can help!”

Ichigo didn’t, because Karin was coming his way, and she felt not quite _sick_ but _off_. She was almost within sight after having almost caught up to them, and he was trusting that Rukia would get through to Chad; he’d catch up once he’d seen Karin back home.

Maybe while he was there, he would say something to Goat Face about letting one of his children, obviously not well, wander out in the city by herself, practically a beacon to any number of people who would take advantage. Not that he didn’t doubt that even _off_ as she was, Karin couldn’t show any number of suspicious characters how much they’d regret targeting her – particularly as she got _vicious_ when she wasn’t feeling good, more likely to go for the literal throat with maximum pain than her normal – but it was the principal of the thing.

He doubted that he’d _let _her though, and really, that she’d actually snuck out – and he had no room to talk, considering how often he’d been doing so to be Rukia’s substitute shinigami, but he was fairly certain in an unspoken manner, that Goat Face _knew_ something about what he was doing.

(A part of him scoffed at the idea that Isshin wasn’t aware of where they were as long as he had any sort of reiatsu above an average plus-soul, which he _did_ now, and _had_ since at least by Inoue Sora’s attempt on his sister. Because while his lieutenant had _supposedly_ snuck in a stash of sake right under his nose before, if someone he cared about was hurt, he was as bad as- about letting them escape his clutches until they were _fine_.)

Actually, on second thought, Ichigo was fairly certain – almost completely – that Karin _had_ managed to escape their father’s clutches, and that if Yuzu and his patients hadn’t been there, keeping him at the clinic, he would have dragged Yuzu along with him to pick up Karin the _second_ he’d realized she was gone.

(A part of him was laughing – maybe even a little evilly – **_someone’s in trou-bleee~_**)

“Ichigo!”

The thing was, _knowing_ that Karin was _off_, and _seeing_ it were two very different things, and he immediately rushed to her, “Karin!!”

She staggered, and he just barely caught her before she hit the ground, lifting her up into his arms before starting off for home at a sprint, “Hang in there, I’m going to get you home, okay?”

Karin was panting, pale and sweating, bruises under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in days, tears budding at the corners, “Ichigo,” – but her grip was strong as she clutched at his shihakushō – “I saw it. A memory of the boy in the cockatiel. It’s his strongest memory, and he _saw _it _all_.” Her eyes were normally so dark, and the same gold glints in her eyes as in his were hardly there unless the light hit them just right, but right now, he could see them shining through, amplified by the grief and the anger swirling inside her, “He saw his mother get murdered! Then that _fucker_ didn’t even hesitate to become a monster, turned her into one too, and he’s _playing_ around with them, jerking them around on a leash for his own sick amusement, promising to _save_ her if the boy just escapes him for three months.”

Ichigo thought of their mother, dead though he’d never seen her soul, and he knew _exactly_ why Karin had pushed so hard to get to him, it was exactly what he would have done if their roles were reversed, because all he could think about was _what if this had been them? Someone dangles their mother’s soul in front of them, promises to save her, but just screwed around with them all._

It pissed them both off.

He just could _do_ something about it.


	24. Rukia

Rukia knew Ichigo wasn’t right behind her fairly quickly, not just in part because he would have passed her already or that he would be yelling after Chad like _this time_ he was going to be heard. She knew Karin had come careening towards him, and no Shiba had ever been able to help themselves when it came to family, so the fact that he’d stopped wasn’t a surprise, but she trusted that once his sister was safe again, he’d rejoin her.

And just because they both knew that if she ran into even just one of the two hollows, she didn’t have the power to defeat it, it didn’t mean she _couldn’t_ hold her own while she waited for him to catch up.

Whenever she made it back to Soul Society, she would have to ask her Lord Brother for lessons in the less kenpō-style skills, because she’d _known_ better – she’d _watched_ how Shiba-fukutaichou had fared when his greatest skill was hampered without a blade in hand – and she’d thought her skill with kidō compensated, matched her skill in kenpō, but they were useless without her zanpaku-tō and with waning reiatsu. She needed another skill, or stronger kidō, and her Lord Brother would know who to ask to teach her.

“Fu-!!”

Rukia stumbled as her leg cramped, as despite her efforts the last couple of weeks to get this scrawny high-school girl gigai body into shape, it severally lacked any muscle definition. Without even the trade-off of focusing on breasts and legs, like the over-sexed morons in charge of creating gigai in the Research and Development department of Squad Twelve typically did. The Shinigami Women’s Association complained at least once every month about the fact, and she _had_ to get the one that looked more like a pre-pubescent girl. This gigai was a _complete_ rip-off; she’d prefer fighting strength, but she’d expected to look like Matsumoto-fukutaichou, at the least.

“Mmm, you smell good!”

Her eyes went wide as she looked behind her at the source of the voice, “You smell like . . _lunch_. I wonder if your soul will taste any good!”

Rukia had been so intent on her pursuit of Chad, trying to catch up to him before he was attacked, that she’d forgotten a cardinal rule of hollow-hunting: watch your back.


	25. Chapter 25

Ichigo had a temper – it was a Kurosaki thing, he’s thought, because him and Karin had it in abundance, and Yuzu had it when pushed, as had his mother – but he tried to keep a lid on it. He’d already stuck out for his hair and clear half-blood status, and while he’d never sought out the fights he’d gotten in, he’d certainly never shied away from them.

Thanks to Goat Face, he knew exactly what his limits were though, knew where to draw the line, and how far he could cross it if pushed.

_He wasn’t the sort to fly off the handle_.

Only, his mother’s death had always been a touchy subject with any Kurosaki, born or married in like Goat Face.

His mother was beyond his help, but Yûichi and his mother, they weren’t.

Karin was _crying_ over them, and she hadn’t cried since their mother’s funeral.

Before her death, they’d all been crybabies, but then Yuzu had stepped up and filled their mother’s shoes and Karin, without Yuzu’s flair for home-making, had stepped aside.

She hadn’t cried when that sixth grader beat her up in first grade – or when she got chewed out by the principal for throwing a ball through his window when she was seven – or when she broke her leg on that field trip in third grade. Not once since he’d told her that he couldn’t _find_ their mom’s spirit after days of searching that riverbank.

Karin had _cried_, and if they couldn’t give their mother peace, then they would give another mother peace.

(A part of him _howled_ for vengeance, wanted to see _blood_ from that which had brutally torn a mother from their child.

And he wasn’t inclined to give mercy either.)


	26. Rukia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #kido spells – is this a translation thing? Do the words make more sense in Japanese? Rereading it was full of ?????  
#they have been slightly edited now

She barely managed to dodge the hollow.

“Hmm . . still alive? You’re tougher than you look. And you can see me. What are you, little girl?”

Belatedly, Rukia realized that if she’d been human – a normal human, because she was starting to think that anyone who spent any extended time with Ichigo wasn’t going to fall into the ‘normal’ human category either, even if they weren’t whatever the Kurosaki were – that hit would have killed her. It meant that she had to act fast, hopefully before the hollow put it together.

She leapt straight at the hollow, bringing her knee sharply into the underside of its mask, then gripping the top to spin her up and behind its head, “Ruler, in the mask of blood and flesh, of all things in the universe that fly, which names all! Truth and temperance, clawing at the dream wall which brooks no sin!! Binding spell 33!! Sôka-tsui – pale fire crash!!”

For a _moment_, Rukia could believe that her reiatsu had begun to return – surely being able to complete the kidō meant that even if it was weak, it would be effective – but as the smoke cleared, it had done _nothing_.

“What?”

The hollow was laughing as she had to dodge its rapid turn and lunge, not a mark on it.

“I _know_ that spell; It’s a shinigami’s! So _that’s_ what you are!?” – Rukia barely escaped its grip, but she still got knocked aside – “But you’re _weak_! It had no _bite_!”

She struggled to get her breath back in her chest, having to realize that while she still could do the spell, it’d had no effect, and any other wasn’t likely to be any better, which effectively nullified most of her combat abilities completely.

“A tender little shinigami . . ohh, you smell delicious!”

The best she could do now – was stall.

The hollow stood there and gloated, like it _knew_ she wasn’t a threat, “This brings back memories . . you see, I’ve already eaten two shinigami who’ve tried to take the boy to the Soul Society. Mighty good eating too!”

“The boy? You mean the soul in the parakeet?”

It chuckled, “Yeah, _that_ brat.”

“Why do you pursue him so relentlessly? Why does that two-masked hollow?”

It leaned towards, teeth knocking together like he’d smacked his lips hungrily, “Good questions, maybe I’ll tell you if you let me have a nibble. I’m _hungry_.”

Rukia sneered in disgust, “_Scum!_”

This time, she didn’t have time to dodge before the hollow had a hand wrapped around her chest, shoving her up against a wall, “What a sissy. You call yourself a shinigami? At least the two I ate put up a fight. Why not ditch the meat suit to fight for real?” It began to squeeze, “C’mon, at least give me a fight.”

Her eyes started going wide, looking out behind the hollow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #I'm actually vaguely curious what gut-reaction thought of 'what's behind the hollow' you all have #because let me tell ya #I sincerely doubt its anywhere in the first three ideas you have  
#and that's intentional


	27. Chapter 27

Ichigo was running as fast as his shinigami body allowed him, barring _something_.

(_Shun-p__ō._)

He put on an extra burst of speed, not realizing when some steps were _more_ than _just_ a single step, when he sensed Rukia’s reiatsu rise, higher than it had in a while, since the last time they’d both fought a hollow – since before Sora.

Then her reiatsu _dropped_, just barely still there, hardly above what any plus-soul had.

(A part of him went death-pale, _if she tries that again, and if she survives her fight, she won’t have _any_ reiatsu left – she’ll be all-but _human, _without_ _even_ _the_ sight.

Another part of him angrily swiped a hand down their face, **grip our bow – focus on her reiatsu, and _release it_**.)

He didn’t have a bow, he had a _sword_ and his mother’s bow was at home, with Yuzu, but it didn’t matter – he _knew_ what bow, even if he had no idea _how_. His fingers closed over bone wrapped in black cloth, pulled back a string he could feel but couldn’t see, focused on _Rukia – Rukia, breath frosting the air and ice crackling on her clothes as she moved, snow dusting her dark hair white – _and released an arrow he hadn’t nocked.

The cold sitting in his chest, the ice that had settled behind his breastbone since the night he met her, tried to slip through the fingers of his right hand in a flurry of pale blue sparks after the arrow.

The roar of ocean waves frothing against cliffs filled his ears, and his fingers closed on cold water.


	28. Rukia

Rukia was hardly paying attention to the hollow pressing her up against a wall, eyes widening not on the sight of Chad booking it straight towards her – but on a _Quincy_ arrow cutting through the air headed straight towards them.

“GRAAAA!!!”

It left her hardly able to react to the sight of Chad _punching_ the hollow away, mind filling with all the stories that the Academy had told each of its graduates about Quincy and how their arrows didn’t _cleanse_ a soul, but _destroyed _it.

“Yeah . . Got him. I think.”

Reflex had her twisting the moment her feet touched the ground towards Chad, to knock them aside.

For a second, she just stared at the arrow made of blue light embedded in the wall where she’d been, just staring at its too-familiar chill that reminded her of her zanpaku-tō, before it shuddered then shattered, splashing what felt like cold water on her – but didn’t wet her skin.

She shrieked, falling away from where Chad had steadied her before trying to box the hollow a distance away on his left, to the ground, trying to wipe away the foreign reiatsu.

(Later, much later, she would focus not on the Quincy-like delivery, but how the reiatsu had felt like _Shiba-fukutaichou’s_. But not. It had felt like his sea-water-reiatsu, but from the cold, dark depths, heavy, and tingling with a static shock.)

It made her miss how Chad got farther and farther away, but stuttered to a stop before he got too far away, tilting his head side to side with a squint, then turn back towards where the hollow had gotten back up, standing not far from her.

“Heh heh, scared me for a second there. But it was just a lucky shot, he can’t see squat.”

Rukia didn’t understand it, but she felt revitalized, filled with more reiatsu than she’d had since the night she’d given Ichigo hers, and she _acted_, “Binding Spell, the first! Sai!!”

Reiatsu chains quickly wound around the hollow, whose scream was cut short as Chad landed a second solid punch against it, sending it flying, “Yeah . . Got ‘im again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #the return of Chad!!!


	29. Chapter 29

Ichigo didn’t let up his pace towards where Chad and Rukia were now both at, but something in him settled at how much stronger Rukia’s reiatsu was – at how they were _both_ there.

(_N**obo**dy d**ies **al**on**e!_)

They were still in danger, fighting as they were, but he trusted that both of them could hold their own – he’d seen both of them fight, and knew they could. It meant that he turned his attention towards the second hollow, the two-masked woman, and getting a track on her as he ran, because even if she hadn’t been aggressive, she was still a threat.

Only, he had been getting better at sensing people, but he was not good enough to get more than a sense of direction unless he knew them – certainly not well enough to track a hollow in the in-between.

He tuned himself towards her reiatsu so he’d know when she broke back through.


	30. Rukia

Rukia stared at Chad, even as she watched the hollow struggle against its binds out of the corner of her eye. Normal humans couldn’t perceive, let alone _hit_ a hollow. He certainly couldn’t _see_ it, too many of his hits weren’t even aimed at it, but he still could **connect**.

A part of her wanted to claim it was impossible, but impossible was mostly out the window for her now when it came to anyone connected to Ichigo, and Chad _was_. As such, she moved right past what was and was not possible, and to: _doesn’t he have any fear?! He’s attacking a deadly enemy he can’t even perceive!_

She had to let it go when there was a sharp _crack!_ – and the hollow’s binds started to break, “Chad!!”

“GRRR! YOU’RE _DEAD!!_”

Chad squinted in the direction of the hollow, then looked at her, “What? Did you say?”

She had more reiatsu than she had earlier in the day, but Rukia didn’t think it would matter much if one of the most basic kidō wasn’t holding for very long; she had to try and stall, Ichigo was getting closer, moving faster than she’d thought him capable, almost but not _quite_ at shun-pō, but he still needed _time_ to get here.

The hollow snarled, and her kidō broke entirely, leaping up into the air with a great bat of its wings

“Run!! Don’t just stand there! It’s taken to the air!!”

Rukia thought that Renji’s favorite kidō, the one that he had never gotten to work right as he always caused an explosion, would be apt to keep it focused on her instead of Chad, “Way of Destruction, Number thirty-one! Red Flame Cannon!”

As a red light condensed in between her palms, and shot up into the sky towards the hollow, Chad blinked, “Hey, new girl, . . can you see ghosts like Ichigo?”

It barely dodged with a laugh, “Weak! _Hardly_ tickled!! Now what, little girl? You can’t hit me like that!”

“This isn’t the time-! My attacks aren’t doing enough, but they’ll distract-!”

“Where is he?” Chad had moved, but not away, resting a hand on the nearest telephone pole.

“What?”

Rukia wanted to stare at him in disbelief, because telling him would accomplish nothing except tell him where his death would come from, and she wouldn’t let it happen even if she had to bodily throw herself in the way, so, really, it would do nothing but waste time that she could spend giving him time to run away and Ichigo to arrive.

“You said he is in the air. Which direction?”

“My nine o’clock. You can’t-.” Rukia caught herself off as he wrapped his arms around the pole, looking her in the eyes with the same look that Ichigo had given her when she’d said that he _couldn’t_ protect his family, “I can do this.”

She didn’t have any words left as she watched him wrench the pole back with everything he had, and where it shouldn’t have, it did; it began to _crack _and splinter at the base.

The hollow laughed above them, “HA HA HA! So many choices of how to kill you two!! I could swoop down-!”

_SNAP! KRAKKRAK**KRAK!! SNAP!!**_

“What . . ?”

Chad pulled back his make-shift ridiculously-sized club, then brought it down with all the weight of gravity on the hollow’s neck and jaw.

“ARGH!!!!”


	31. Tatsuki Interlude

Tatsuki had walked Orihime home in a bit of a daze. Just a bit overwhelmed from the Urahara _Experience_.

At some point while the blonde man had been giggling and exclaiming with Orihime over his wide selection of strange candies, the boy that had been following them had thrown open the front doors, throwing the man an almost mulish, skittish look, then quickly, politely, left his shoes by the front door to put on a pair of house slippers labeled _Jinta_, and _ran_ into the back.

Orihime looked up with owlish eyes for a second at the door slam, but was quickly drawn back into putting various sweets in a plastic bag labeled in broad strokes _Urahara’s_ when Tatsuki waved her down to stare concerned after the boy.

A few minutes later, a hulking behemoth of a man, dark-skinned like Chad with long dark cornrows and a white apron – also broadly labeled _Urahara’s Shoten_, but with _Tessai_ stitched into the neck – had nearly silently come back out, carrying a tray with a tea-pot and three mismatched tea cups – labeled _Urahara_, and _Customer #1_ and _Customer #2_ respectively.

Tatsuki prided herself on her good instincts, so she didn’t do more than twitch when Urahara – the man was literally wearing a haori with his _name,_ on the back with _Kisuke_, and along his spine, _Urahara_, like her mom still did for her little brother – hand-fed Orihime a new not-yet-for-sale candy he’d made with hardly a by-your-leave, because he was a lot of things – _creepy, strange, weird, increasingly appearing to have little sense of boundaries_ – but nothing that said she needed to grab Orihime and book it, or beat him to a pulp just for existing.

So, she’d taken the tea that Tessai had handed her gratefully, needing something to occupy her hands before it settled in that _there were two of them with the same taste-buds, Orihime’s going to want to regularly visit_ and gave into the temptation to throw the man across the room over her shoulder.

Urahara had hardly paused in his gleeful rendition of some past successes and failures in his candy combinations when Tessai had held up his tea cup and he’d sipped out of it without grabbing it.

After the second cup of tea that went cold while the two went off on tangents about what flavors could be combined, Tatsuki had started to mimic Tessai and just held out the _Customer #1_ cup for Orihime to sip out of. Which was the point that Tatsuki realized they had been there _way_ too long, and ran herd on Orihime to pay for her purchases and then got her out the door as Tessai shepherded Urahara into the back.

The blonde man still managed to call out, “See you next week, hime-chan~”

Tatsuki did not care that she slammed the front door behind them, it was setting in that this would become a _regular thing_.

She pretended to not hear the, “Ha! Told you Miyako . . ~”

It was better for her sanity.

The uneasy feeling that she’d felt before entering Urahara’s Shoten quickly came back.

When they got home, and Orihime went upstairs to stash her purchases in their room, and she went to make some of the tea blend Tessai had slipped into the bags she’d carried out for Orihime, while boiling water, the power went out abruptly.

She didn’t know how, or why, but she _knew_ that _somehow_, Ichigo was involved. This smelt like the sort of bullshit he was involved in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Kisuke labels many things #I have the link to a wonderful tumblr post describing his nerdiness – and a large part of that is him putting people’s names on things, specifically mentioned towards what is his and what is Yoruichi’s, but implied that the kids and Tessai also have a bit of this too  
#Ichigo Conundrum #Urahara Experience #they are just a step away from being their own verbs  
#that moment when you know your friend so well that you’re not there, but you have a feeling – the Feeling – the ‘my friend is in the middle of some BS’ feeling – and suddenly, there’s that call, that news announcement, that ‘did you hear?’, and the Feeling is Justified #that’s Tatsuki #after a lifetime (or two) of dealing with Ichigo’s Ichigo-ness #it’s not even Ichigo directly but peripherally


	32. Rukia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #the reveal of the second hollow's identity

The hollow hit the ground _hard_.

It laid there, hardly moving and groaning lowly.

Rukia watched it carefully, hand raised with her reiatsu gathered in preparation for another kidō, “Give up. Another shinigami will be here shortly to deal with you.”

Only, it wasn’t groaning – it was _laughing_, chuckling darkly, “Aren’t you curious? About how I ate two other shinigami?”

She sneered, “I don’t need details of _how_-“

Its grin was sharp-toothed and hungry, “_That’s _how shinigami keep getting eaten.”

Chad was already turning as dozens of small reiatsu signatures popped up behind them – or more accurately, finally registered. Only the size of a cat, they hadn’t warranted her notice _before_.

Now they did.

“Way of Destruction, number thirty-one! Red Flame Cannon!”

Three of the weird little hollows were quickly incinerated, but there were so many more; she and Chad were taken down to the ground quickly, covered in the little hollows. Layering atop each other on Chad, looking like they were trying to bury him beneath their weight.

“Heh heh . . now, that’s quite the role reversal.” It laughed, “You shinigami are so slow. You never think that I might have friends.”

Then it leaned in, licking its lips, “So, who do I eat first?”

Chad roared as he threw off the little hollows, then punched just above her, blowing back the ones atop her with no contact needed.

“What the-!?”

Rukia quickly rolled to the side as Chad kept up his one-man fight, striking out in the general direction of the hollow where it had been gloating, causing it to step back with a breathless, “The crazy fool!! Thinks he can beat me with muscle alone-!”

The hollow had a _very_ near-miss with Chad’s fist, just as a crack opened up just above the ground behind it, and a hand reached out to grab one leg, “WHERE IS YÛICHI!?”

The other hollow leapt into the air, dragging the second out and up.

She realized what Ichigo had meant about two masks as the female hollow ripped into the other hollow’s leg with rows of needle-teeth underneath the top animal-skull mask where its lower jaw was gone, the visible right eye wild with grief and protective fury.

With a _crack_ of bone and a pained _scream_, she tore off with her teeth one leg from the other hollow, dropping down holding it before throwing it aside.

“YOU BITCH!!” The little hollows made for the female hollow, squishing the backs of their bulbous heads to spit out tens and tens of leech-like creatures at her, “HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO KILL YOU!?”

Her ridged back puffed up, layering her in sharp spines that skewered many of the leeches, but others slipped through and latched on, sticking even as she shook off the ones that had gotten pierced.

“They don’t come off so easily do they, now?!”

The female hollow bared her teeth needle-teeth, red with blood, raising one large clawed hand and bending all but one finger down, “WHERE’S MY SON!?”

The hollow landed atop a wall further down the street, “Take one more step” – and lifted up the cage that they’d left there – “and I’ll eat him.”

“MOM!!” “YÛI-!!”

The hollow clicked his tongue, and the leeches on her blew up.


	33. Chapter 33

Ichigo snarled as he landed with as much force as he could bring down on the winged hollow, even as Rukia was quick to bind the two-masked female hollow with her kidō in the short time it was stunned by the close-range chain of explosions.

With a flick of his wrist, he cut off the hand holding the cockatiel, then caught it before the cage could fall far.

“Ichigo!!”

He raised his zanpaku-tō, “You should know the name of the person who kills you, you four-star wanker. The name’s Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute shinigami.” – then stabbed down.

Just before his blade could cut through the hollow’s mask, the little hollow minions spat leeches at him, and he had to jump back to avoid the things before they could land on Yûichi and the explosion killed the cockatiel hosting him.

The leeches slid off the hollow like water off a duck’s back as it laughed, “You’re the real shinigami! When you two split up, I should have gone after _you!_”

He quickly passed Chad Yûichi, not noting how his friend squinted at him, “Ichigo?” as he kept his attention on the hollow and its little minions.

“Be careful Ichigo!”

“The leeches are bombs, right?” His eyes traced how the minions nearly had them surrounded, “Your soul smells so _good_, substitute. I’m going to enjoy eating you.”

“New Girl, what’s Ichigo doing?”

“Ichigo’s fighting a demon.”

With Rukia focused on the second hollow, and keeping her subdued – which she was struggling with considering that the hollow had been barely injured by the explosion and was straining the kidō binding to the point that he didn’t want to turn his back on her – that left him to deal with the minions that were swarming them.

(**_Destroy him!_**)

His eyes were more gold then not as his grip changed to one-handed while slicing up the little ones, other hand raising in the direction of the hollow with red sparks flickering around his bunched fingertips.


	34. Rukia

Rukia could feel herself sweating from exertion after she cast the same kidō for the fourth time in a row, disgusted with herself that was all she could do, and that each cast was getting progressively weaker – the next one would have all the strength of twine, and there would not be another after that, she was already digging into the dregs of her reiatsu.

If she was watching Ichigo, she would have seen the red sparks and known what they were.

She wouldn’t have understood _how_ he was creating a cero, but she would have eventually chalked it up to what had happened to Kaien’s soul before it reincarnated.

If she was watching, she would have seen how that curious wristband that had followed Ichigo from body to soul, glowed, then absorbed the hollow reiatsu before it could finish forming. She would have seen how Ichigo glanced at that hand in confusion, neither understanding what exactly he’d been doing – or why it had abruptly failed to finish.

She wasn’t though.

Not when her kidō broke just as the other hollow laughed, “Heh heh! Good idea!! If they spit out leech-bombs, kill them before they can spit, right? But you overlooked something! The leeches that spill from their guts are still bombs!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Hollow Ichigo has been DE-NIED


	35. Chapter 35

Ichigo couldn’t dodge even when he knew the whistle was coming, not when he was what stood between Chad, Rukia, Yûichi and the leech-bombs.

(**_You fool! UGGH!!_**)

He had a feeling that he could take it; he didn’t know why, but he thought of that moment where the female hollow’s spines had latched but _not_ into his skin.

He blinked and black licked across the whites of his eyes, eyes that looked gold in the light, and he lifted his zanpaku-tō towards a guard position.

Then a large clawed hand grabbed the back of his shihakushō, pulling him back in a heap in front of Rukia and Chad just as the bombs went off.

As the smoke held up all around them, came off her spined back, the female hollow bowed her head until her one visible eye was level with the cockatiel in Chad’s hands, “Yûichi . . baby, you’re okay . . mommy’s glad.”

She was all but crooning, even as tears ran freely from her eye, fingers digging deep into the ground, “Mommy’s glad you’re okay. Mommy’s been trying to find you since . . since the bad man took her away from you. She’s _needed_ to know you were okay.”

Ichigo looked between the two with a sinking feeling, because it was one thing to wonder what had happened to her soul after her death, but it was another to _see_ it.

His lip curled back, and he stepped out from where the woman – even as a _hollow_ had tried to protect her son – had put him to run right at the hollow, “You bastard, you killed the his parents, didn’t you!?”


	36. Rukia

Rukia stared at where the female hollow, instead of turning on them, trying to immediately eat them – or return to attacking the other hollow – or trying to eat the spirit of the _boy_, as that was her family, and it was _instinct_ that until she’d seen Orihime’s brother resist, she’d thought _impossible_ for them to – had _protected_ them.

Even reaching back to pull Ichigo into safety.

She was honestly confused on what to do.

The Academy would have her immediately try and restrain the hollow before it ate the boy, but _she’d_ defied everything she’d been taught. The fact that she’d been searching out her son for who-knows-how-long was in with what the Academy had taught her, because she was going to eat his soul to fill an emptiness that couldn’t be, but she hadn’t immediately fell on him the moment she was free.

Wasn’t trying to eat him right now.

She was crooning and crying, keeping herself at a distance like she didn’t trust herself to get any closer, looking so _relieved_ that her son hadn’t been eaten.

Yûichi was crying, the cockatiel hiccupping little screeches while his spirit was the most visible it had been since Chad had shown up with the bird, little hands rubbing at his eyes as he sobbed, “M-mom, it’s _my fault_ you’re hurting, that- that man is fighting, that this man was hurt. _I just wanted you to stop hurting_.”

“Oh, baby . . baby, it’s _not_-“

“H-he said I just h-had to keep away! T-hen he’d bring you _back! _A-and everything would go b-back to the way it _was!_”

Rukia put aside the dilemma of the female hollow for a moment, keeping herself on guard in case she needed to act quickly – no matter how futile it might be when her kidō were as effective as wet tissue paper – but _this_, this was important, “Wait. Who told you there was a way to bring your mother back to life? Who told you that!”

It was a _lie_, an _awful_ lie that they were explicitly warned to not at all allude to in any manner, that it had a one-hundred percent success rate of turning any soul into a hollow when it inevitably failed. If a _shinigami_ had uttered it, in some fool attempt to be comforting to a bereaved child, she had a duty to report it, see them punished.

If a hollow had uttered it, it expressed a cunning the likes of what the Grand Fisher had, and it _needed_ to be hunted down quickly, before it got to the point where even a ranking shinigami was told to step aside and call for a lieutenant.

Rukia had the awful feeling that it was the other hollow, who’d already expressed a similar cunning with the minions and a similar kill-streak towards shinigami.


	37. Chapter 37

Ichigo swung at the hollow, who just laughed at his question, “I did! The father was a deadbeat, pleaded for his life. The mother – mm – she was such a sweet thing five years ago, was so happy when she opened the door for me. Back when I was still alive, they called me a serial killer. I traveled around, hunting. Killed eight people. They even talked about me on TV! I was famous, a real celebrity in our neck of the woods. And she was my final score!” – dodging – “I stabbed her a dozen times, and she still ran away, bleeding, trying to protect her kid. What a sight!! It was beautiful, so much red! I get chills remembering it!!”

He snarled, taking another swing, “Sicko!”

The story was _far_ too similar to his mother’s, what he could remember of it, and it was making him _angry_, black bleeding into the white of his eyes as more than a flicker.

“Then it all turned sour. I chased her onto the balcony and finished her off, but the brat grabbed my shoelaces! I lost my balance and fell to my death. Man, did that suck! Really spoiled the moment for me! I wake up, and there she is, and I was so _angry – _but so was she.”

The hollow laughed as he dodged Ichigo’s next swing, not seeming to realize Ichigo was herding him further away from the rest towards a wall, “I decided that she would suffer right alongside the brat who’d killed me, pulling on her chain. I sucked out his soul and stuck it in the parakeet, then made a deal with him! Run from me for three months! If he managed it, I’d bring Mommy back to life!”

(_Lies!!!_)

Even if he knew better than to believe the hollow, Ichigo couldn’t help how his hopes rose – mind flashing not just to Yûichi’s mother, but _his_ mother – “Bring her back to life!? Isn’t that . .-“

“Of course not, you moron! I just told the brat that so he’d play! It worked like a charm-!”

Ichigo snarled, something dark and dangerous ripping out of his chest _because that was using the boy like bait_, and it was _far_ too similar to what had happened with him and his mother for him to tolerate listening to even a moment later.

(**_Fuck him up!!_**)

Red-tinted black reiatsu dripped off the edges of his zanpaku-tō as he raised it up for a strike, hardly noticing how he was hardly needing to connect for his swings to cut through the arm the hollow raised in defense like it wasn’t even there. Spinning his blade in his hand, he slammed it down through the hollow’s leg and into the ground, catching the leeches spat at him with the other hand and crushing them between his fingers.

His teeth were bared in a maniac smile as he didn’t even flinch when they blew up, instead reaching out to catch at the extended tongue – and _rip it out_.

**SHWUK!!**

“_GRAAAH!!!_”

(**_Good start, King, but the fucker’s still capable of talking!_**)

“You thon of a . . !! You ripped out my tongue!!”

He didn’t think as he ripped out his blade from where he’d buried it, “Now you can’t move . . or use your bombs. You’re helpless. Feels bad, doesn’t it!? This fear! That’s what your victims felt, you bastard!!”

And sliced clean through the hollow’s mask.

“Don’t forget that fear!! Drive it deep into our brain and disappear!!!”

** _VWOOM-_ **

“_No- NO!!!_”

**_KRAK-_SNAP**

“_PLEASE!_”

** _KRAKKRAKKRAK_ **

“**AAAAAAAH-!!**”

** _VWOOOOOOOOOOM_ **

His eyes went wide, black receding quickly as he stared at the giant set of doors that rose out of the ground and sky behind the hollow, a skeleton on either side, three prayer ropes tied to each outside rib and it’s fellow corresponding rib, a skull-headed pin in the rope on the outside ribs, “What- What is that!?”

Rukia spoke up from behind him, eyes still on the female hollow who was snarling at the gate while standing defensively between it and her son, “It’s Hell.”

He could _feel_ the door pulling on his soul, feeding it, making it more stable with how the skeletons slowly flexed their hands and the ropes holding the door together strained.

“I told you, the zanpaku-tō cleanses a soul of its crimes, so it can enter the Soul Society. But not all hollows make it in; the zanpaku-tō can only wash away the sins a soul committed as a hollow. Those who committed heinous crimes while they were alive . . we hand over to Hell.”

One by one, the ropes snapped, and a vaguely sulfuric fog escaped as the doors ominously creaked open. The ropes shuddered, moving in an invisible gust before growing- growing- wrapping tight around the hollow with no hindrance to his struggles

Waiting on the other side was a red-faced red-clothed man nearly as tall as the gate, arms thicker than he was and a very broad chest, a square crown on his head. His dark eyes were wide and angry, slanted upwards as he glared at the bound hollow. On either side of him was a pillar, a disembodied skeletal head atop, one a woman and the other a man.

In his hand was a scroll, “Touma.”

The hollow’s struggles went frantic, screaming behind the rope caught between his teeth where he’d tried to bite through it, as he was dragged inside the gate to what he realized was Jigoku, closer to what _must be_ Enma-ō, Miru-me and Kagu-hana.

Enma-ō lifted his gaze from the hollow towards them, him, meeting his eyes for a moment.

(Inside his head was very still, very quiet, with the sense of wanting to hide but unwilling to cower even to a _god_.)

The god looked _amused_, before the female hollow howled as she dived after the other hollow drew his attention away.

Ichigo didn’t even have _time_ to do more than step forward, not sure what he was going to do other than not wanting to see the female hollow go to Jigoku, before Enma-ō caught her under her arms, her form rippling and shattering at his touch to reveal a _woman_ in a white shihakushō, “Himari.”

Yûichi threw himself against his cage, “Mama!!”

Himari looked wide-eyed at Enma-ō, speechless as he gently put her down, “You do not belong in my realm. Return to where you belong.” She sunk into a deep bow, then ran back to them, tears falling freely down her cheeks as she sunk to her knees and hugged where Yûichi was overlapping the cockatiel, sobbing into her son’s chest.


	38. Rukia

Rukia hastily dropped into a deep bow, pulling Ichigo down with her as Enma-ō returned to Hell and the doors closed behind him, not rising until the gate had sunk back beneath the earth, eyes wide.

The Academy had never covered _this._

It was mentioned that some hollows had committed such heinous crimes in life that instead of being cleansed and sent to the Soul Society, they were sent to Hell. The description of the Hell Gate was even mentioned in some degree, so they knew what was happening, but _nothing_ about what was on the other side of the door was.

The assumption was that they were dragged in, or were dropped in – a popular theory was that the gate rose up and the doors slid open like a trapdoor – or even just _eaten_ by the door.

The assumption was that the Hell Gate required a certain set of criteria to _manifest_, as there were tales known to Rukongai-born shinigami about the disembodied male head that had been waiting behind the gate. That it tracked down the souls that while not heinous enough to be dragged in by Enma-ō, or just hadn’t become a hollow before a shinigami performed konsō, belonged in Hell for a time. They were just whispers of rumors, but the male head had been looking towards her, and smiling, and _she knew that smile_.

She’d thought it a nightmare, a hallucination brought on by hunger before she’d met Renji, but she’d seen that smile stretch _wide_ and _eat_ a man who’d been beating a strawberry blonde girl before a silver-haired boy had rushed over, dropping pomegranates on his way.

Rukia didn’t know what to _think_, let alone what to _say_ if Ichigo asked what that had all been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Cameos!


	39. Chapter 39

Ichigo hadn’t resisted when Rukia had pulled him into a bow, a part of him so relieved that Enma-ō hadn’t taken more interest in him – he wasn’t going to _touch_ why the god had seemed _amused_ about him _ever_ if he had his way – that she didn’t rip his shihakushō doing so.

He did notice how her hand was white-knuckled, shaking slightly, as they listened to both Himari and Yûichi cry, and the hollow’s scream cut off as the doors to Jigoku closed before sinking below the earth.

When he looked up, Chad’s eye was wide, like he’d seen a glimpse of Jigoku, before tracking to just above his left shoulder, squinting in his direction, “Ichigo, did we just-?”

“Yeah, that was Jigoku. We just saw a god.”

There was a moment where they processed that.

Rukia was a little wide-eyed still as she turned to where Himari was clinging to her son, no longer sobbing but still tears ran freely down both of their cheeks. She knelt next to the cockatiel, but seemed stuck on what exactly to do, frowning as she chewed her lip, “Your chains of fate have long been severed, and it’s too late to put you back in your body, Yûichi, I’m sorry . .”

She was quiet as Yûichi cried anew and Himari tried to comfort him, but couldn’t stop either, at the confirmation that he was as good as dead.

“We can send you on to Soul Society, though. You’ll never be hungry, and you’ll be happy. It’s better than here!”

He eyed her, at how she was fudging the truth a little to try and give them hope, “Hmm,” – but it was also a sales pitch, clearly – “That might be true. You can be together though, I know that.”

(_Souls sent together, end up in the Rukongai together. Everything else could be a lie if either of them have developed spiritual pressure because of this, but they’ll be together regardless._)

Ichigo bent down to eye level, thinking of that little girl he didn’t know but was in his memory – _Kukaku!_ – that he _knew_ but had never met, “You’ll end up in the Rukongai. Head to the edges of a forest, and look for a pair of arms extending out from the ground. The house there will shelter you. If a woman asks – say that the water lead you there.”

Rukia gave him a funny look as he straightened up, reaching for his zanpaku-tō, “Shall we start the konsō?”

“Yeah!” Himari kept repeating what he’d said to herself, holding on to her son like she expected to go that second and she refused for even the chance they’d be separated, but paused when Yûichi turned, “Chad?”

Ichigo watched Chad’s shoulders droop in sorrow even as he looked directly at the boy, “Thanks for everything!”

“Um . . It was nothing!”

The cockatiel shook its head with the boy, “You saved me from that monster! You protected me from him!”

There was a little color to Chad’s cheeks, hardly noticeable with his skin, but Ichigo smiled softly to see how embarrassed his friend got with the praise, even as his shoulders drooped a bit as well, “Um . . it was nothing . .”

“We better get going . . thank you . . _very much_.”

“Uh, Yûichi . .” The boy looked back at Chad instead of the ground, “When I die and go over there . . can I carry you around again? And run around one more time?”

Himari laughed softly even as Yûichi beamed, “Sure!”

Ichigo gently tapped the kashira of his zanpaku-tō against their heads, then there were two swallowtails flying off, leaving the cockatiel staring after them.


	40. Omake

Ichigo had barely gotten a foot inside the classroom before class was supposed to start, when Tatsuki was in front of him, finger pressed into his chest with narrow eyes.

“_You . . !_”

He blinked, “Me?”

Chad clapped a hand on his shoulder, then gently moved him to the side so that he could come in before he was marked tardy.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes after his friend’s back, after the silent _you got this_, after just _abandoning_ him to Tatsuki’s wrath for _something._

“Yes, you! You and- and- and your _Ichigo-ness! _You had something to do with that power outage last night!”

He opened his mouth to deny that, _because not everything was his fault_, but uh- it had been a little bit his fault?

Chad paused, turned around to look back at them, “That was me. I ripped out a telephone pole.”

Tatsuki whirled to look up at him, narrowed eyed – and Ichigo looked beyond her to see that Orihime was flailing atop the teacher’s desk, talking about how the pyramids of Giza were too perfectly done in alignment with the stars to not be the work of aliens, and Orihime _winked_ at him.

Ichigo spluttered in sync with Tatsuki as they both processed that Orihime was _intentionally distracting the class with a wild theory_ and/or that it was _Chad_ who was at fault for the power outage and that he’d _ripped a telephone pole out of the ground_.

Tatsuki recovered first, whirling back on him, “Still your fault.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond before stomping over to her seat, and the door slide open behind him and Rukia, “Kurosaki? Kuchiki? Get out of the door so I can start class.”

**Author's Note:**

> This installment took a while ENTIRELY because my friend and I were discussing what happened with Yuichi's mom - and plot for this arc took a decided left turn.
> 
> Also, despite said conversation clearly outlining HOW this left turn occurred, somehow, it didn't work its way into text. If curious, do ask. The conversation lasted an hour where we were just going back and forth figuring out how it would work/have happened, and now I'm actually a little said I couldn't work an organic explanation in.


End file.
